


Calypso

by fayrose



Category: Black Sails
Genre: F/F, Outdoor Sex, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-13 10:09:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1222333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fayrose/pseuds/fayrose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with a pout. It almost always did with them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calypso

It started with a pout. It almost always did with them.

Max slipped from bed as quiet as a breath and shrugged cool silk – a gift from Eleanor – onto her heated skin. The moon cast short shadows through the many paned windows and the sounds of the tavern below echoed up through the floorboards. The night was but young. Morning was far away. Yet the time had come for her to leave and she wished that just once, Eleanor would not notice her go.

But once more there came the rustle of sheets from the bed and the creak of wood straining under a shifted weight.

“Stay,” Eleanor whispered. Her tone held no hope. She asked every night and never got her way.

“If only,” Max replied, her eyes sharpening in the darkness, picking out Eleanor’s outline and then the silver lines of her face. Her eyelids were heavy with sleep and the swell of her lips turned outward in a pout. Max’s breath caught and she let herself dwell a moment on the wonder that was Eleanor Guthrie. She was beautiful beyond belief. More so now, in the darkness, when the purity of the shape of her eyes and the curl of her hair was undiluted by their vibrant daytime colour. More beautiful still were the roundness of her shoulders and the swell of her breasts, picked out in moonlight. “I ‘ave already stayed longer than I should.”

“Maybe tomorrow I will not go to sleep.” It was childish and impetuous and everything that Max loved about Eleanor.

“Then I will ‘ave to work ‘arder to tire you out, ‘mm,” Max teased, hands on hips and smiling.

“Work?”

Ah, that old insecurity again. If Eleanor did not spend every other moment playing the all confident, no nonsense fence, Max might find this repeated anxiety grating. As it was, it only endeared her more. It meant that Eleanor cared.

“I will ‘ave to  _endeavour_  ‘arder to tire you out. Better?” Eleanor’s pout remained firmly in place. Sighing, Max moved to the side of the bed, tilted up Eleanor’s face with a hand beneath her chin and looked deep into her eyes. And what beautiful eyes they were. “You are never work to me,  _ma Chérie_ , you know this.”

When Eleanor’s eyes held their doubt, Max bent her head and brushed a kiss over those pouting lips – light and lingering. “I should ‘ave a few ‘ours or so free after dawn. My night would be better if I knew that I ‘ad you ‘ere waiting for me. What do you say?”

There was a time when Eleanor would not have been able to hide her distaste at the thought of Max slipping into bed beside her after a night’s work. Now her pout melted into a smile, and Max wondered if it meant that Eleanor was falling for her as hard as she was falling for Eleanor. But that was too much to hope for.

“Well it’s not like I have anywhere else to be.”

Max laughed. “Such a sweet talker you are.”

Eleanor snorted and pulled Max onto the bed. “You wouldn’t have me any other way.”

 

 

\---

 

 

Wakefulness found Eleanor with Max’s soft warmth pressed close behind her. With a smile, she took her first deep lungful of the salty morning air. Her chest expanded like a sail in high wind, swelling to make the undersides of her breasts brush against the arm that Max had draped around her. It was the perfect way to wake. Better even than when Max’s kisses breathed life into her sleep-slackened lips. Far, far than the ringing of Mr Scott’s voice, announcing the arrival of an exquisite prize. Nothing compared to the simple serenity of greeting the day with Max sleeping peacefully beside her, as close as a kiss, despite the morning sun.

So soundly did Max sleep here in Eleanor’s bed – in  _their_ bed – that Eleanor could turn in her embrace and she would not even stir. That Max felt that safe beside her made Eleanor shiver with contentedness. But that was nothing to the stirrings set about by the vision of Max in the golden light. She seemed to glow. Like an angel. Her hair, damp from bathing before returning to Eleanor’s side, was curling in an ebony apparition of the sea’s waves on the pillow behind her. A stray curl shifted against her collar bone with each sleep-deep breath that whispered between her rosebud lips. Everything about her was beautiful, inside and out, and Eleanor could not believe that such a beauty came willingly –  _eagerly_  – to her bed. She could not believe that Max, for whom the entire island held a torch, had chosen her lips to kiss and her ears to hear what lay in her heart. She could not believe that she could be so lucky. Or that they had found a place where they needn’t hide it. In that, Nassau was truly a wonder.

“ _Tu êtes toujours en train de me regarder dormir_ ,” Max breathed, her voice rough and low.

“English,” Eleanor prompted automatically, used by now to Max’s tendency to slip into French when she was half-asleep.

“You are always watching me sleep,” Max amended, her eyes still closed and her body still as it had been in sleep. “You should improve your French. I could teach you.”

Eleanor chuckled. “I can read what I need well enough. You think that you have the patience to teach me?”

Max smiled impishly and Eleanor wished that she would open her eyes. “I ‘ave taught you many things.”

Eleanor was glad that Max could not see her blush. “I have to get up. We have a ship of cargo set to depart this afternoon and there’s still a whole prize of silk that wants loading into barrels. Everyone else does it wrong and ruins it. It has to be me.”

“What colour?” Max asked, smiling when Eleanor’s hand skimmed down her back and rested on the curve of her arse – intimate yet undemanding.

“The blue-green of the sea. I’ve kept a ream behind. Enough for a gown. Maybe a little more. I’ll have it sent to Mrs Fenway and ask her to make you up whatever you want from it,” Eleanor said, taking this rare opportunity to drink in the perfection of Max’s features without being watched.

Smiling, Max opened her eyes and circled her arms around Eleanor’s waist. “You are too good to me. I wish that I could give to you something in return.”

“You are enough of a gift,” Eleanor breathed, always most sentimental in the morning.

Max leant in to kiss her. “That was almost romantic.”

Eleanor laughed against her lips. “Don’t get used to it.”

 

\---

 

When Noonan told her that her next appointment was waiting for her out back, behind the tavern, Max’s fear had run high. She was in no position to refuse a client, but she would not bend to their every whim the way that some of the women would. Her not-so-secret association with Eleanor afforded her just enough protection to keep her from the more violent appetites of most of the pirates, but not from those who did not fear Eleanor’s retribution. Recently, that number had been growing.

With this in mind, she chose not to walk around the building, but to take a liberty and sneak through Eleanor’s study, from where she could glimpse the man waiting for her before she committed. She might not be able to refuse a client, but perhaps Eleanor could… dissuade him. What she spied through the flimsy white curtains, however, was not a patron, but Eleanor herself – her hair free of her work-day bun and her skirts swapped for breeches. She faced away, towards the sea, with her hands on the reins of a palomino pinto horse with the most startling pair of blue eyes that Max had ever seen. Well, except for one other pair.

“What is this?” she called from the white-washed wooden steps that led down to the sand. “Noonan-”

The horse in Eleanor’s command reared at the sound of Max’s voice, staggering back on its hind legs and whinnying high and loud. Max’s heart jumped into her throat as she imagined the weight of the beast coming down upon Eleanor’s crown. But almost as soon as the animal had spooked, Eleanor had soothed it again, bending her head to kiss its pale nose and whisper soothing things to it. Max had never before envied a horse.

“He has been well compensated,” Eleanor said in a low, soothing voice directed at the horse. They did not talk about the money. It was a necessity that hurt them both, but it could not be done away with without Eleanor outright buying Max’s debt. And that had implications that were far worse than anything that existed now.

“Did your ship get off?” Max asked. She knew how much the business meant to Eleanor, and if that meant sometimes talking about things that held no interest for her, then she would do it.

“Eventually.” Eleanor had not turned to greet Max, but instead kept still to calm the jittery horse. “Come and meet my new mount. I thought we could take her for a ride. See how she runs.”

Max’s pulse beat in her ears as she struggled to overcome her fear and trust in Eleanor enough to approach the horse. She did not like them. They were too big and too strong and she had never been in a position to ride one more than once before. But she could not admit that. Not to Eleanor who saw things in Max that Max wasn’t even sure were there.

“Where did you get ‘er?” Max asked as she stepped soundlessly down the stairs across the sand.

“The breeder’s wife was taking her to the tanners,” Eleanor began, her voice still holding that same calm, serene tone that Max associated with early morning murmurings. “She was born to the mare that swam to shore from the wreck of a merchant ship that was sunk off Rose Island two years back. The mare foaled not a week after making shore. They say that blue eyes on a horse are awfully bad luck and she’s a devil of a filly. Wild as the day she was broken. No one has dared ride her since she threw the man who broke her off like he weighed nothing more than a neckerchief. No one would buy her and she’s worth more to them as leather and meat. I think she and I are kindred spirits of a kind.”

Max could not help but smile. Though she would deny it, Eleanor had a sentimental side beneath all of her bravado. “Max can see the resemblance.”

Eleanor laughed softly. “You noticed that? I couldn’t let a beauty like this go. Not with this much life in her.”

When Max reached them, Eleanor dropped one hand from the horse’s reins and brought Max’s hand up to the animal’s soft nose.

“She is beautiful,” Max agreed. “‘ave you given ‘er a name?”

Eleanor turned to look at her, resting her cheek on Max’s hand upon horse’s velvety nose. “Calypso, for the ship.”

“A sea nymph,” Max whispered to the filly. “Is that what you are?”

A look of surprise brought Max’s eyes back to Eleanor. “Did not think I would know that, did you?”

Without a care for who might see, Eleanor lifted her head to kiss her. “You never stop surprising me.”

“ _Bien_.”

With an enviable grace, Eleanor mounted the filly and helped Max up behind, her arms wrapped tight around Eleanor’s waist and her chin resting atop Eleanor’s shoulder. Though her stomach was sick with fear of what the flighty horse might do when Eleanor dug in her heels, Max could not entirely regret her current position. If she held her nerve, she could turn it to her advantage.

It took only the smallest of encouragement to set Calypso hurtling along the beach. She was, as Max had expected, a damn fine runner. Her muscles moved beneath them with the smoothness of water and through her pace was quick as anything, she was elegant in it.

They rode hard along the beach, past the town and up the dirt road that led into the trees. There they ran in the humid air until Calypso let herself be calmed into a meander by the gentle pressure Eleanor sent through her reins. It was only then that Max’s grip on Eleanor’s waist loosened from the iron hold she had her in since their ride began.

“Fuck,” Eleanor breathed, sweat running down her neck. Max turned to kiss the salty flesh, nuzzling into its warmth. “She’s magnificent.”

“She is not the only one,” Max drawled, her hands beginning to wander.

“Max!” Eleanor gasped as one of Max’s hands disappeared into her shirt.

“Shhh,” Max hushed, wasting no time in bringing the hand she had slid into Eleanor’s shirt up to cup one of her breasts. “There is no one ‘ere to see and you would not have brought me so far from prying eyes if you did not want to fuck.”

It was satisfying to make Eleanor tremble and Max nipped at her neck to make her whimper too.

“I – There’s a blanket in the saddlebag. And some wine.”

Laughing low and throatily, Max brushed her thumb over Eleanor’s nipple. “You do not need liquor to get me out of my dress. Nor will I come so deep into the jungle just for you to ‘ave me on a blanket. Far too civilised.”

“Fuck,” Eleanor swore again. Max would be the death of her, she was sure. Never had someone driven her so senseless before. “The horse will bolt.”

“Not if you are a good girl and keep your hands steady on her reins and your legs slack by her sides,” Max whispered, undoing the laces of Eleanor’s breeches with her free hand, before slipping it inside to find that Eleanor wore nothing underneath and was already slick with want for her. This was either going to be the fuck of her life or they were both going to end up on their arses on the jungle floor.

“Please,” Eleanor begged. Max loved to hear her beg. “Please.”

“Please what? Tell Max,” Max teased, brushing the tip of one finger against Eleanor’s clit with a cruel lightness, feeling it harden as Eleanor’s need grew. She would have to be careful, or Eleanor would fall too swiftly over the edge and that would be no fun at all.

“I don’t – I don’t think I can do it,” Eleanor warned, the breathy tone of her voice sending Max’s own need soaring. If she pushed Eleanor hard enough, she would be oh so vigorously rewarded. The risk of falling was definitely worth it.

“Try ‘ _arder_ ,” Max said, emphasising the last because she knew it would drive Eleanor wild.

“Fuck.” She was right.

“ _Précisément_. Now,  _en français._ Your education starts ‘ere,” Max declared, referring to their conversation that morning.

“Baiser,” Eleanor panted. Swearing in French she could handle. It paid to be able to curse at a pirate in whatever mother tongue he might have. It tended to intimidate them more. Plus, she had made Max cry that plenty of times and had heard her beg more explicitly too. If there was going to be one area of French that she might excel at, it would be cursing and filthy, suggestive words.

“ _Très bien,_ such a good girl,” Max praised, bringing her thumb to Eleanor’s clit and pressing hard to rewards her and torture her both. “Now, tell me what you want Max to do to you.”

She didn’t expect much, not with what her hands were doing and the amount of effort that Eleanor must be expending on keeping still, but she wanted her to try. Eleanor was nothing if not a trier.

“ _À - À l’intérieur de m – moi_ ,” Eleanor begged.

With a wicked smile, Max complied, pressed torturously slowly inside her with two fingers and stilled them. Waves of pleasure tingled over Max’s body as Eleanor clamped down eagerly on her fingers again and again, hot and wet and desperate. When Max spoke again, her voice was rough with her own need. “ _Et maintenant_?”

Eleanor searched her mind for the words, trying with all of her might not to cant her hips and risk spooking the flighty filly beneath them. She could barely breathe with Max inside her. Nothing ever had or ever would feel  _that_  good. When her answer didn’t come, Max crooked her fingers in a ‘come hither’ motion that made Eleanor’s vision flash white.

“ _S'il vous plait... S'il vous plait, Max, baisez-moi!_ ” she whimpered, biting her lip so hard that the taste of iron flared on her tongue.

Pressing a mockingly tender kiss to the shell of Eleanor’s ear, Max sighed, “ _Avec plaisir._ I thought you would never ask.”

Experience told Max that Eleanor needed to come hard and quick if she was to stand any chance of keeping still, and Max knew exactly how to give that to her. She thrust her fingers deep and fast, curling up with the backstroke and pressing hard on her clit with the fore. She drove into her again and again for what felt like a lifetime before the tell-tale trembling of the muscles in Eleanor’s thighs warned her that she was close.

“That’s it. Good girl.”

Pinching Eleanor’s nipple roughly, Max sent a third finger in to join the other two, making Eleanor clamp down the very moment that Max was stretching her wider. It was too much for Eleanor and she came with a cry as Max raked her thumbnail over her clit. She fastened down on Max’s fingers and the muscles of her stomach fluttered with the effort to keep still. Max ran her hand over them, appreciating the affect that her efforts had had.

“Hush,” she soothed, her fingers still trapped inside. If she pulled out now, Eleanor might come again, and this time she would have no control. “Hush, my girl.”

“Max,” Eleanor panted, finally letting go of the reins with one hand to cover the hand Max had laid on her bare stomach.

“You are so beautiful when you come apart for me,” Max said longingly, wishing that she could see the storm clouds in Eleanor’s eyes. She got her wish when Eleanor turned her head and kissed her with more honesty than she could ever give in words. In return, Max guided Eleanor’s hand down to cover the one trapped between her legs. “And so possessive too. Max likes it.”

Eleanor smiled into their kiss and tightened on Max’s fingers. “Very.”

Intrigued, Max nipped at her lip, “Exactly ‘ow possessive are you?”

“I don’t want anyone fucking you but me.” The hard tone of Eleanor’s voice sent shivers down Max’s spine. God, she loved this woman. More than was good for her. More than she should. “And I don’t want you fucking anyone either.”

“Noonan won’t like it.”

Eleanor rolled her eyes. Childish in her passion. “Noonan can go fuck himself. If it’s what you want, then I won’t take no for an answer.”

Her mouth dry, Max nodded. She didn’t care how Eleanor did it or how much she had to pay. She needed this.  _They_  needed this. And that Eleanor had almost demanded it of her made Max throb with need. “Find somewhere to tie the ‘orse. I need you. Now.”

Eleanor didn’t need telling twice. The moment Calypso’s reins were secured, Eleanor pushed Max up against the nearest tree and tore open her dress. Max whimpered and writhed as Eleanor ripped down her underthings and shoved her fingers inside of her. Her thrusts were rough and possessive, and she bit down hard on Max’s neck and then the swell of her breast. The hand she was not driving mercilessly into Max, she used to lift up Max’s thigh, opening her up for her to fuck deeper and harder. Max’s scream made the horse whinny and rear and Eleanor’s smile was so smug that Max came harder than she had ever come before, the delicious roughness of the trees bark spreading the pleasure up through her body and making her weep.

Afterwards, Eleanor laid out the blanket at the foot of the tree and Max lay down, exhausted. Eleanor crawled between her thighs and made her come again, before laying her head on Max’s belly and drifting off to sleep with Max’s fingers combing soothingly through her hair.

The ride home passed in serene silence. Max cuddled up behind Eleanor and pressed thankful kisses along her neck and shoulder, more content than she could ever remember being. When they reached the tavern, Eleanor would have to barter for her, but for now she would give Eleanor all the affection that she could give.  And for Eleanor, Max’s affection was endless.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've actually written anything anywhere near this explicit, so feedback is welcome!


End file.
